A + O 91 IMPORTANT PAINTINGS AND CONTEMPORARY ART: 1 APRIL 2015 ART: 1 APRIL PAINTINGS AND CONTEMPORARY IMPORTANT
ART + OBJECT
IMPORTANT PAINTINGS AND CONTEMPORARY ART
01 APRIL 2015 1969 in pic tur e s
This catalogue offers art followers a the spirit of the times – a period where the glimpse into the relatively recent past of influence of new international movements New Zealand history via the work of five such as Pop Art and counter-culture of our leading artists: Ralph Hotere (lot aesthetics conflated with a vigourous 51), Richard Killeen (lots 9 & 10), Pat sense of a youthful New Zealand identity Hanly (lot 32), Michael Smither (lot 33) being constructed on a daily basis. In and Robin White (lot 34). Rarely does a 1969 New Zealand was a country where group of paintings come together to speak the city was beginning to take centre stage so clearly to a moment in our visual arts in articulating our national consciousness. history – a period that could be called New Zealand’s rural, farming roots, the Peter McLeavey and Barry Lett years which until the 1950s defined the after the ground-breaking gallerists who rugged national self-image, were being gave birth to a nascent gallery scene in superseded by the urban and suburban Wellington and Auckland respectively in reality of the post-WW II baby boomer the 1960s. In the work of these five artists generation. These works all capture a we are transported back to the dawn of the moment in time when the young artists 1970s, a period when New Zealand art of New Zealand, those born in the 1930s was flowering with an assertiveness that, and 40s, began to express this new reality. to our eyes over forty years later, appears To discover such a vital group of works dazzling and full of the promise of colour. together in the context of this auction The 60s arrived a bit late in sleepy New catalogue enables us to re-evaluate a key Zealand but by 1969, when the five works moment in our art history, and to marvel in question were created, the decade was at the changes in each artist’s oeuvre over in full swing, particularly in the visual arts. subsequent years. Highlighted also, is how Each of these five artists was instrumental coherently these works still affirm their in creating a new, vibrant exhibition scene original conceptual ‘inputs’ nearly five and the individual paintings speak to us of decades later.
3 Abbey Street Newton, Auckland
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THE COLLECTION OF DAME JUDITH TE TOMAIRANGI O TE AROHA BINNEY & SEBASTIAN BLACK
AUCTION: 4 JUNE 2015
Enquiries: Ben Plumbly [email protected] 021 222 8183 The Ron Sang Collection highlights
5 March 2015
This landmark collection of New Zealand modern painting and applied arts was one of the most successful auctions in A+O’s history. The Ron Sang Collection featured museum-quality works by many of New Zealand’s leading artists and bore witness to Ron’s role as a leading patron of the arts and visual arts publisher. The Sang family generously opened their home in Epsom for a viewing on the Sunday prior to the auction – an event which witnessed Don Binney, Katoomba Fatbird, oil and acrylic on board, 1982 hundreds in attendance. The auction $304 850 night itself saw the ART+OBJECT saleroom packed with perhaps more attendees than even the Les and Milly Paris auction in 2012 and bidding was furious from the first lot. On the night over 97% of the 188 works offered sold under the hammer and numerous new artist auction records were set. The final sale total of $2.01 million represented the second highest private sale total in New Zealand, after the aforementioned Paris Collection also held at ART+OBJECT. Toss Woollaston, Mapua, oil on hardboard Prices realised include buyer’s premium. $178 805 – new artist auction record
Don Binney, Beyond Wainamu, Te Henga III Pat Hanly, Suburban Innocents acrylic and oil on canvas, 1974 oil and enamel on board, 1983 $158 285 $234 500 – new artist auction record
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V gVgZ [^cY ^c daY 6gi]jgh Ed^ci# I]^h [djg WZYgddb! ild luxuryrealestate.co.nz/QT93 42+4 Terry Spice Nick Horton +64 21 755 889 +64 21 530 000 [email protected] [email protected] luxuryrealestate.co.nz AjmjgnGZVa:hiViZA^b^iZY A^XZchZYG:66'%%- The Ron Sang Collection further highlights Guy Ngan, Anchor Stone carved wood on marble base, 1992 $37 520 Guy Ngan, Animated Colours No.15 acrylic on hardboard, 1973 $26 380 Allen Maddox, Untitled Michael Smither, New Zealand Oranges acrylic and metallic paint on canvas, 1992 oil and alkyd on board, 2000 $37 520 $146 560 Karl Maughan, Foxhall Road oil on canvas, 2000 $49 245 – new artist auction record Michael Hight, Lindis Pass acrylic on canvas, diptych, 2000 $42 210 – new artist auction record Brent Wong, Building – Clouds Gretchen Albrecht acrylic on hardboard, 1997 Nomadic Geometries (At this Hour – Red) Robert Ellis, Rakaumangamanga $41 035 acrylic on canvas acrylic on canvas, 1988 $60 970 $36 347 – new artist auction record 8 HORNABROOK MACDONALD DON’T SETTLE FOR LESS. L5, 12 O’CONNELL STREET, AUCKLAND TEL: 09 353 7999 FAX: 09 353 7599 WWW.HMLAW.CO.NZ The Ron Sang Collection ceramics highlights Ron Sang describes his relationship with Len Castle as one of his earliest in an art context – he was introduced to the ceramicist by their mutual friend the artist Guy Ngan in the early 1960s – and it was a desire to record and celebrate the work of Len Castle that was the motivation for the founding of Ron Sang Publications in Len Castle, Sulphurous bowl the early 2000s. Ron’s collection of $13 505 – new artist auction record Castle works has long been regarded as definitive and collectors responded to this provenance resulting in a new record price for Castle at auction and numerous new records for diverse genres of Castle’s work and new records for leading practitioners such as Roy Cowan, Ray Rogers and Graham Ambrose. Len Castle, Inverted Volcano Len Castle $8790 Crater Lake bowl with alkaline blue glaze $12 310 Len Castle Large Bottle vase Ray Rogers with jun type glaze Large stoneware floorvase with fungoid form top $5765 $5645 – new artist auction record Roy Cowan, Little Forest Salt glazed stoneware $12 610 – new artist auction record Graham Ambrose Large porcelain bowl with rich orange sun glaze $1875 – new artist auction record Len Castle, Lava lake bowl $9365 10 GALLERY OF MODERN ART BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA 28 MARCH — 21 JUNE 2015 qagoma.qld.gov.au SUPPORTED BY Michael Parekowhai / The English Channel (detail) 2015 / Courtesy: The artist and Michael Lett / Photograph: Jennifer French Andy Warhol Sunday B. Morning silkscreen print $4680 Jae Hoon Lee, Window type C print, edition of 8 $6000 Guy Ngan, Tiki Hands acrylic on board A.R.D. Fairburn $10 810 Rare hand stamped curtain with Maori rock art designs after Theo Schoon $9365 Claude Michel Clodion Ettore Sottsass for Memphis Robin White (1738 – 1814) A mid 1980s Mizur glass vase Florence and Harbour Cone Two dancing Bacchantes with a $6005 silkscreen print, A/P, 1975 satyr in cast bronze, 1762 $10 810 $7505 The Elmslie Sideboard An Oak and Kauri New Zealand Arts and Craft sideboard with carving and copper repousse work by Jessie Elsmlie, circa 1890 $15 615 Simon McIntyre, Opening Credits III acrylic and canvas, triptych, 2001 $6600 New Collectors Art & Decorative Arts highlights 17 & 18 February 2015 Prices realised include buyer’s premium New collaborative works on paper, ceramics & limited edition printed garments by Max Gimblett + Martin Poppelwell + Workshop. Limited edition printed garments available at all Workshop stores. Works on paper & ceramics available exclusively at Workshop Ponsonby, 74 Mackelvie Street, (09) 361 3727 WWW.WORKSHOP.CO.NZ David Samwell (1751-1798). Wednesday 15 April, 2015 Rare Books Final entries invited A Narrative of the Death of Captain James Cook: To Which Contact are added, some Particulars The centrepiece of the April Rare Books catalogue is a Pam Plumbly concerning his Life and find which ranks as one of the rarest of all Captain Cook 09 354 4646 / 021 448 200 Character, And Observations [email protected] related texts, the legendary Narrative of the Death respecting the Introduction of the Venereal Disease into the of Captain Cook as recounted by the ship’s surgeon Sandwich Islands. London 1786 on the third voyage of the H.M.S. Discovery, David $50 000 – $100 000 Samwell. The catalogue will also include a first edition Sapper Horace Moore- Jones’ Sketches at Anzac, published in 1916. Also included is a delightful cache of correspondence, photographs and sketches from Edward Lear to his his friend Spencer Vincent and his faithful dog Fan from the 1860s. 5220621/<r&25325$7(5$7(6r(&2)5,(1'/<r&(175$//2&$7,21r&203/,0(17$5<%52$'%$1' 2+7(/25,(17$/3$5$'(:(//,1*7211(:=($/$1'r3r(5220#2+7(/&20:::2+7(/&20 Valuation Services Important Commissions 2015 A+O is New Zealand’s leading art, taonga and collectables valuation provider. The A+O team led by director James Parkinson is regularly commissioned to provide large scale and complex valuation advice to New Zealand’s public museums and galleries. These projects include a wide range of fine art, historic and modern decorative arts and design and significant cultural taonga such as meeting house carving, sculpture and important waka. 2015 sees the department commence with important mandates from the Waikato Museum Te Whare Taonga o Waikato, six important historic houses in Northland for Heritage New Zealand and the collection of Te Manawa, Palmerston North. A+O provides a comprehensive service for complete collections to individual items. To discuss commissioning an ART+OBJECT valuation contact James Parkinson, Director of Valuation and Collections Management on 09 354 4646 or email [email protected] Coffee raced to your door eighthirty.com IMPORTANT PAINTINGS AND CONTEMPORARY ART AUCTION Wednesday 1 April at 6.30pm 3 Abbey Street, Newton, Auckland PREVIEW Thursday 26 March 6.00 – 8.00pm VIEWING Friday 27 March 9.00am – 5.00pm Saturday 28 March 11.00am – 4.00pm Sunday 29 March 11.00am – 4.00pm Monday 30 March 9.00am – 5.00pm Tuesday 31 March 9.00am – 5.00pm Wednesday 1 April 9.00am – 2.00pm 1 APRIL 2015 Lot 2. Judy Millar, Untitled No. 8 (detail) 1 RICHARD KILLEEN Retribution acrylic on paper title inscribed, signed and dated 28. 2. 79 575 x 380mm Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. $4500 – $6500 2 JUDY MILLAR Untitled No. 8 acrylic on aluminium signed and dated 2003 verso 448 x 327mm Illustrated: William McAloon, ‘Veering distinctly towards the lime’, The Listener, May 3 2003, p. 54. Exhibited: ‘The Brush Moves This Way, The Bruch Moves That: Judy Millar’, Bartley Nees Gallery, Wellington, May, 2003. Provenance: Acquired by the current owner from Bartley Nees Gallery, Wellington in May 2003. Private collection, Taranaki. $6500 – $9500 20 3 4 MICHAEL PAREKOWHAI SEUNG YUL OH The Bosom of Abraham Ode Pou screenprint on fluorescent light housing automotive paint on fibreglass, two parts (2010) 1300 x 200 x 80mm 900 x 700 x 550mm: installation size variable $7000 – $9000 Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. $5000 – $8000 21 5 STEPHEN BAMBURY FVB603 (Light) acrylic on aluminium title inscribed, signed and dated 1996 verso 420 x 630mm Illustrated: Wystan Curnow and William McAloon, Stephen Bambury (Nelson, 2000), pp. 202 – 203. $6000 – $9000 6 STEPHEN BAMBURY Image-Object (Magenta/Yellow) acrylic on canvas, diptych title inscribed, signed and dated 1986 ver so 430 x 410 x 25mm and 380 x 380 x 25mm Illustrated: Wystan Curnow and William McAloon, Stephen Bambury (Nelson, 2000), p. 87. $4000 – $6000 22 7 GRETCHEN ALBRECHT Camelot acrylic and oil on canvas title inscribed, signed and dated 2010 verso 950 x 1600mm Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. $25 000 – $35 000 23 8 LIZ MAW Escape into Night oil on board (double- sided) signed and dated ’08 885 x 413mm (excluding frame) Exhibited: ‘Liz Maw’, Ivan Anthony Gallery, Auckland, 2009. Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. $16 000 – $24 000 24 9 RICHARD KILLEEN Four men and a woman in the street oil on board signed with artist’s initials R. K and dated 9/69; title inscribed on label affixed verso 672 x 671mm Exhibited: ‘Dead woman, dead man – paintings and drawings, 1969’, 29 March – 23 April 1994. Illustrated: Laurence Simmons, The image always has the last word: On Contemporary New Zealand Painting and Photography (Palmerston North, 2002), p. 138. Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. $25 000 – $35 000 26 10 RICHARD KILLEEN Woman Dancing in Green oil on board signed with artist’s initials R. K and dated ’69; title inscribed, signed and dated and inscribed Cat No. 2563 on artist’s original label affixed verso 672 x 673mm Exhibited: ‘Stories we tell ourselves: The Paintings of Richard Killeen’, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o T maki, 9 September – 5 December 1999. Illustrated: Francis Pound, Stories we tell ourselves: The Paintings of Richard Killeen (Auckland, 1999), p. 52. Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. $25 000 – $35 000 27 Richard Killeen 11 Language is not neutral No. 2 alkyd on aluminium, 11 parts title inscribed, signed and dated 1984; Cat No. 2563 on artist’s original label affixed verso 2250 x 2300mm: installation size variable $37 000 – $50 000 Bright, crisp, funny and instantly intriguing, axe head; the bisected, reflected bee-shape; the Language is not neutral No. 2 plays with our natural suggestion of a butcher-shop poster showing cuts desire to seek meaning in art. Chosen for Killeen’s of meat in the sectioned cow-shape; the cut-away 1984 exhibition at the Bertha Udang Gallery in form of a piece of industrial equipment. The latter New York, Language is not neutral No. 2 is among suggests some sort of extraction technology, like a the most effective and memorable of Killeen’s ‘cut- centrifugal milk extractor, as does the screw motif outs’. linked to a reservoir, with round holes appearing All Killeen’s cut-out works are intended to like drops of liquid below a vat. Processes of cutting, be hung in whatever way the owner pleases. The squeezing and extracting, then, are dominant owner becomes an enfranchised collaborator themes that emerge as we try to ‘read’ the whole with the artist in constructing possible meanings, array. by arranging the individual pieces in appealing ‘Language is not neutral’ turns out to be a phrase juxtapositions. The viewer is also implicated in the borrowed from feminist theory, as Francis Pound collaboration. No precise reading is intended or has explained. In its original context the phase was even possible – the range of potential meanings used by writers Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock is amplified by the introduction of the owner’s to convey the message that gender stereotypes and personal tastes, preferences and free associations agendas are embedded in all language and its use: when choosing how to order the pieces on the the conceptual dice are always loaded in favour of wall, and the viewer’s attempts to interpret them. one or another set of prejudices and assumptions. In the case of Language is not neutral No. 2 most All uses and users of language are implicated in of the individual ‘pieces’ of the puzzle-like array are this observation. Extracting the phrase from its bipartite or tripartite images. Some have a definite specific context, Killeen implies that it can apply axis, like the black bee image which is bifurcated to any number of situations in which a set of signs with precise symmetry. Others, like the cow or symbols is presented for ‘reading’. The ideas of standing on an ambiguous lemon-squeezer shape, visual grammar and syntax are obliquely alluded to have clear borders that tend to divide the images by their deliberate undermining. By deconstructing within the individually shaped piece. These borders symbols, rearranging them, and permitting imply that all freely associated ideas must naturally rearrangement by others, he inversely highlights rub incongruously against each other, defying conventions of interpretation. Pound also talks about logical analysis. One image is singular: though only the ‘slicing and dicing’ effect Killeen achieves with a severed head, the well-known Lacoste crocodile such works, referring to both the crisp precision of logo is clearly identifiable – a nod to the enduring Killeen’s hand and eye in creating and dividing the legibility of the clever commercial brand – while strange associations, and the conceptual cutting, ‘Lacoste’ is also an anagram of ‘lactose’. The human- splicing and reordering involved in creating and like figure seems to be morphing into a three- distributing the symbolic elements. legged milking stool. A theme of cutting emerges in the fragmentary images: the severed fishtail; the Oliver Stead Exhibited: Provenance: ‘Richard Killeen’, Bertha Urdang Gallery, New York, 1984. Purchased by the current owner from ‘Stories we tell ourselves: The Paintings of Richard Killeen’, Bertha Urdang gallery, New York in 1984. Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Ta¯maki, Private collection, Auckland. 9 September – 5 December 1999. Illustrated: Francis Pound, Stories we tell ourselves: The Paintings of Richard Killeen (Auckland, 1999), p. 91. Laurence Simmons, The image always has the last word: On Contemporary New Zealand Painting and Photography (Palmerston North, 2002), p. 142. 28 12 MICHAEL PAREKOWHAI Mimi (Maquette) bronze, automotive paint, acrylic (2011) 125 x 200 x 145mm $4000 – $7000 13 RACHAEL WHITEREAD Doorknob, 2001 Technogel multiple covered with black polyurethane film, edition 206/300 signed and editioned on accompanying information card 130 x 65 x 65mm Provenance: Purchased by the current owner from Connie Dietzschold at Multiple Box Sydney in September 2002. Private collection, Auckland. $1000 – $2000 30 14 Exhibited: ‘Necessary Correction: Colin McCahon, STEPHEN BAMBURY Helmut Federle and Stephen Bambury ’, Necessary Correction VII Auckland Art Gallery, September – October acrylic and resin on two aluminium panels 1997. title inscribed, signed and dated 1995 verso 1170 x 852mm Illustrated: Wystan Curnow and William McAloon, Stephen $20 000 – $30 000 Bambury (Craig Potton Publishing, 2000), pp. 212 – 213. 31 15 BILL HENSON Untitled No. 20 2000/2001 type C photograph, 1/5 original Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery label a ffixed verso 1270 x 1800mm Provenance: Acquired by the current owner from Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney. Private collection, Sydney. $30 000 – $40 000 16 JAE HOON LEE Piha type C print, edition of 8 (2007) 120 0 x 120 0mm Provenance: Acquired by the current owner from Starkwhite in 2008. Private collection, Wellington. $5500 – $7500 17 ANN SHELTON Frederick B. Butler Collection No. 14, Puke Ariki, New Plymouth, Scrapbooks from Waitara 1948 June – December to Crime 1950, February 1 – 15 type C print, edition of 3 (2006) 1365 x 965mm Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. $4500 – $7000 34 18 PETER PERYER Waitangi inkjet print, edition of 15 title inscribed, signed and dated 2005 verso 750 x 1000mm Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. $6000 – $9000 19 PETER PERYER Lake inkjet print, edition of 15 title inscribed, signed and dated 2005 verso 750 x 1000mm Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. $6000 – $9000 35 20 PETER MADDEN Ur World found photographic images and black vellum title inscribed, signed and dated 2006 verso 988 x 1290mm Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. $10 000 – $15 000 21 RICHARD ORJIS Flower Idol type C print, edition of 8 970 x 830mm $4000 – $6000 22 LAYLA RUDNEVA-MACKAY I don’t see you today… type C print, edition of 8 (2006) 1515 x 1190mm $6000 – $9000 37 23 JACQUELINE FRASER Number Twenty: And they said that precious miracle, our dear darling gift from God, was a language of the third world. wire, organza, lace and pins title inscribed, signed and dated 1999 on accompanying installation sheet and photographs 1500 x 800mm $5000 – $8000 24 JACQUELINE FRASER Number Nineteen: And they said that precious miracle, our dear darling gift from God, was a language of the third world. wire, organza, lace and pins title inscribed, signed and dated 1999 on accompanying installation sheet and photographs 1500 x 800mm $5000 – $8000 38 25 MICHAEL PAREKOWHAI The Moment of Cubism unique hand-finished bronze, 2009 1150 x 600 x 350mm $32 000 – $42 000 39 Shane Cotton 26 Sky, Land and Words acrylic on canvas title inscribed, signed and dated 2013 verso 1700 x 1200mm Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. $65 000 – $85 000 Sky Land and Words addresses the first thirteen of hill and valley that emerge among the letters verses of the Book of Genesis. The first verse – intrusions of physical reality into the tenuously is in the circular emblem appearing in the maintained stream of consciousness. Rather sky, dominating the lyrical, darkened, deeply than stressing the conflict between the cultures, receding forms of land and sea, below and Cotton’s rendition instead makes Polynesian and behind the text: ‘He mea hanga na te Atua i European traditions equal before the land, in te timatanga te rangi me te whenua’ – ‘In the their mutual dependence on unbroken chains of beginning God created the heaven and the verse with which to make sense of the universe. earth’. ‘He Pukapuka Tuatahi’, in the Gothic Their marriage – or at least uneasy relationship script, is ‘The First Book’. The twelve following – had first to take place within the translation verses materialise as a trail of interrupted and interpretation of words. Even before such letters, which, as they are followed, and their verbal intercourse could take place between the correct linkages made out against the shadows cultures, exchanges of symbols were necessary of the backdrop, gradually form themselves into to enable basic communication. In this respect meaningful verse. The thirteen verses tell of the both cultures were forced to rely on symbolic first three days of Genesis, in which God made and emblematic communications – the trading heaven and earth. In these three days He gave of signs, gestures and even pictures whose form to the earth, and let light shine upon it, and meaning transcended linguistic differences and separated day from night. Dividing the waters appealed directly to universal human needs and from the firmament, He called forth the dry land, aspirations. and brought forth grass and seed, and fruit trees Sky Land and Words reveals Cotton’s mastery bearing fruit. of textual and non-textual communication. With a mixture of profound respect and Seizing our attention from afar with the Gothic, penetrating irony, Cotton gathers around the gang-patch-like emblem and its superficial Maori verses a series of additional symbolic connotations of confrontation and conflict, he clues, alluding to fundamental incongruities brings forth a work of art which instantly makes between the Judeo-Christian cosmology brought its presence felt. Yet it is in close communion to New Zealand by European missionaries, and with the work that we begin slowly to realise the pre-existing conditions of the land first the depth and complexity of its vision, and colonised by the Polynesian ancestors, centuries the way it opposes and reconciles different earlier. There were, of course, no deciduous fruit cosmologies. In the painterly aspect of this trees in Aotearoa like the one whose budding commanding work we can also trace much of branches form the delicate tracery behind the the history of colonial art in New Zealand, from skull motif of the central emblem. No thrush the topographical drawings of early surveyors to or blackbird contributed its northern melody the subtle push-pull play of space around letters to the sonorous notes of tui and kokako in the that was pioneered by McCahon. Bringing these dawn chorus. Yet to the first Polynesian settlers, elements together, Cotton realises much of the as much as to the European newcomers, this richness that has evolved around the meeting of land must have seemed a cultural tabula rasa, cultures in Aotearoa New Zealand. conceptually formless, needing to be named. The conundrum is evoked by the floating shapes Oliver Stead 40 Michael Parekowhai 27 Tu Tama Ra powder-coated steel 2200 x 1650 x 65mm Provenance: Acquired by the current owner from Michael Lett, Auckland in 2005 $80 000 – $100 000 This elegant relief work entitled Tu Tama Ra an older, senior figure. Perhaps Walters use of the engages with, or more correctly re-fires a long word was an acknowledgement of the kinship of running debate within New Zealand art history the multiple screenprint as the junior to a larger that spans intellectual property, indigenous and earlier koru painting as well as the original rights, cultural appropriation and authorship. indigenous creators of the koru bulb. Parekowhai Almost since making landfall European artists in turn might well be recognizing the older artist’s have been fascinated by the artistic possibilities position as appropriate and even culturally ‘safe’. of Maori forms and graphic elements: the visual This is one reading of a work which invites multiple DNA of the first people of Aotearoa. Those first interpretations, all of which can be read between engagements were predominantly ethnographic the lines as it were. and documentary, but by the middle of the 20th Parekowhai’s appropriation of Walters first century Theo Schoon and Gordon Walters move in this area is a form of artistic trump card. initiated a new direction of research that sought The use of the kitset schema could not be more to explore modernist principles within the visual pointed, as both homage to the reductive power language created by Maori – sparking debate over of Walters modernist program and critique of the the issue of ‘ownership’ of indigenous intellectual art vs. culture debate. Parekowhai seems to argue property. both sides; the kitset being both a facsimile of the Dissension flared in the 1990s around the idea ‘original’ and an invitation to the observer to ‘have of appropriation – in effect the use or ‘lifting’ of a go’ and de-construct this ‘new’ original. Maori imagery without due consideration of the It’s this kind of ‘make my day’ provocation cultural meaning, role or ownership of a given that Parekowhai specializes in. He himself has image. It is into this argument that Parekowhai produced kowhaiwhai multiples with his Bosom of wades with this imposing wall mounted sculpture. Abraham light box works and has ‘kitsetted’ other The motif of the positive/negative articulation of artworks including the granddaddy of conceptual the koru is of course classic Walters. In this case art himself, Marcel Duchamp. the arrangement of the koru pattern is a near Ultimately Parekowhai’s argument is twofold. facsimile of Walters’ 1977 screenprint Tama – First up, that the game has moved on and that with one small variation being three instead of two he is now controlling the debate – in effect that bulbs in the final ‘line’. no rules is the new rules. Secondly he argues So in order of batting it runs: original source for the freedom of the artist to use any source material i.e. the koru, Walters multiple Tama (itself material in any way he thinks fit and to hell with the a refinement of an earlier canvas entitled Grafton) consequences. Of course in New Zealand this can and Parekowhai’s kitset form Tu Tama Ra. be the artistic equivalent of playing with a loaded But, as always Parekowhai’s titles provide a gun. That Parekowhai can swagger like the new nuanced ‘in’ to the relationship of the form to sheriff in town and keep his powder (coating) dry the source material. The Tama of the title in the with such knowing élan is all part of the fun. Maori language refers to a younger male and is frequently used as an indicator of respect towards Hamish Coney 42 Colin McCahon 28 Kaipara flat with a blue sky watercolour and oil pastel title inscribed, signed and dated ’71 1030 x 675mm $90 000 – $125 000 Among the artist’s most exhuberant that buying so often has to do with works, are the large-scale, fresh and destruction and exploitation. A beach impressionistic watercolour and acrylic section becomes a shop and a shop works on paper generically referred breeds a camping ground and a beach to as the Kaipara Flat, Helensville and covered with plasticised “Sundae” Muriwai works, executed on Steinbach containers and ice cream sticks and paper in 1971 and 1972. Kaipara Flat wrappings and plastic bags from the with a Blue Sky was painted in 1971, new season’s bikinis… I am painting the year McCahon resigned from his about what is still there and what I can teaching position at Elam in order still see before the sky turns black with to focus full-time on painting. By all soot and the sea becomes a slowly accounts it was a very happy time in the heaving rubbish tip.’ artist’s life and this plays out tangibly in The overwhelming aesthetic of works from the period, with the artist Kaipara Flat with a Blue Sky is one entering perhaps his most productive of freshness, lucidity and freedom, stage upon having made the move to with the artist clearly delighting in the Muirwai studio a couple of years the immediacy of watercolour and beforehand. the large sheets of steinbach paper The move to Muriwai also prompted which his dealer Peter McLeavey had an increased focus on the local procured for him. As Wystan Curnow environment and on environmental has noted, for McCahon there is really issues. McCahon would freqently plant no single isolated work but rather sets, himself on the cliff at Muriwai, a vantage series and ultimately one work, ‘the life point which would soon thereafter work’. McCahon’s ‘empty’ landscapes result in the Necessary Protection are among his most seemingly works. Here, he could revel in the daily secular compositions, yet still his life- patterns of the small terns as they learnt long investigation of spirituality and to fly and fish, their frenetic patterns belief remains omnipresent. Most captured in the swirling lines lines especially though, Kaipara Flat with among the rich blue sky. McCahon felt a Blue Sky presents itself, as does strongly that the coastal region west of Colin McCahon’s entire output, as a Auckland was under ever increasing celebration of this land and the people threat, remarking: ‘My cliff top is as yet who have inhabited it whilst also largely uncorrupted but like almost reminding us that the former will remain everything else it is for sale. My wife long after the latter. and I who would at least try to preserve it can’t afford to buy it. It is unfortunate Ben Plumbly Reference: Colin McCahon database (www.mccahon.co.nz) cm001746 Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. 45 Colin McCahon 29 French Bay oil on board signed and dated Nov ’56; title inscribed, signed and dated verso: original Auckland Art Gallery loan label affixed verso 629 x 430mm $140 000 – $180 000 The McCahon Online Database lists 27 etc. all parallel to the sides of the picture. A works with ‘French Bay’ in their titles from suggestion from Mondrian…’ (p. 31). 1953 to 1959: 1 for 1953-54, 6 for 1955, 7 The 1956 oils (as in the great French Bay for 1956, 8 for 1957, 1 for 1958, 4 for 1959. in Te Papa) were larger and more sombre, There are at least a couple of others not yet mainly because they were painted in the on the Database, plus a dozen or so closely- winter months, June-September; the blues are related works with ‘Manukau’ in their titles. darker and ochres, browns, greys and blacks Together with ‘kauri’, French Bay/Manukau predominate. The present work, however, was a dominant theme of McCahon’s early is different. An oil painting on board, it is years in Auckland. dated November 1956, and is therefore an There are several distinct phases in the early summer painting, which accounts for its ‘French Bay’ open series. It was a theme exhilarating vividness of colour. Did McCahon which continuously evolved, depending ever paint a bluer picture, or one so near to on such factors as the medium – gouache, being monochromatic? watercolours, oils, enamel and sand, oils This delightful work stands out in other and inks – the support – paper, cardboard, ways, too. Unlike other French Bay paintings stretched canvas, hardboard, unstretched of 1955-56, it is not vertical/horizontal in canvas – and the varying colours, structures structure but predominantly diagonal, except and imagery employed. The 1953-55 for a prominent discontinuous white band works were confined to gouache and/or running across the middle of the painting (a watercolour on paper; in 1956-57 they are horizon line between sky and sea?). Unlike more various in size and materials, mostly both earlier and later examples, the diagonals oils on cardboard, hardboard or canvas; in do not criss-cross but run consistently from 1958-59 (post McCahon’s career-changing upper left to lower right. A wide range of blue U.S. visit), he uses either enamels and sand tones is employed, from pale to dark with on hardboard, or inks and oils on unstretched irregular touches here and there of violet, canvas. ochre and white. The paint is laid on freely and In 1953-54 McCahon employs a loose spontaneously in small and larger contrasting diagonal criss-cross grid similar to that in the patches, a method common in the Titirangi contemporaneous Towards Auckland series, years. The effect is almost entirely abstract, about which he commented: ‘I found a grid though with the pointer provided by the title of diagonals helped hold the image on the suggests the prismatic dazzle of sunlight on paper & freed the imagination to let the image water. expand’ (Peter Simpson, Colin McCahon: The This is one of the most hedonistic and Titirangi Years, p. 32). In 1955, the diagonals joyous paintings in McCahon’s generally give way to a vertical and horizontal grid; somewhat sombre and dark-toned output. McCahon described them as ‘all very gay & summertime looking & painted in squares Peter Simpson Illustrated: Reference: Peter Simpson, Colin McCahon: The Titirangi Colin McCahon database (www.mccahon.co.nz) Years 1953 – 1959 (Auckland University Press, cm000401. 2007), pl. 38. Provenance: Literature: Collection of Mr and Mrs Russell Hillsborough. ibid., p. 33. Private collection, Auckland. 46 Stephen Bambury 30 “That Reveals Itself Continuously” copper leaf and acrylic on aluminium, seven panels title inscribed, signed and dated 1999 verso 3200 x 580mm: installation size Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. $40 000 – $55 000 Stephen Bambury’s ‘Chakra’ series stand referred to as ‘Ladders’ or ‘Chakras’ within as one of the most coherent and striking which “That Reveals Itself Continuously” bodies of work in New Zealand abstract can be firmly located. The repeating cross art. I hesitate to use the word painting as structures over seven vertical panels refer it seems they do something else as well as to a spiritual passage that make explicit being nominally ‘paintings’. Tall, elegant, the seven psychic centres of the body as architectural, and in this case metallic and described in Tantric yoga. alchemical, the repetitive columnar nature These works, and this work in particular, of these works – as they rise to the heavens are notable for their deployment of resins, – allude to a range of concerns of which metals and ground graphite. In the case the ‘painterly’ is not the most pressing. of “That Reveals Itself Continuously” the The repeated beat of the ladder active metal is copper, regarded as the form intersects with a range of pictorial, oldest of all metals. The seven metals religious and art historical ideas that place of antiquity being lead, tin, iron, gold, Bambury within a lineage that commences mercury, copper and silver all carried with the pioneer Russian abstractionist deep symbolic interpretations across Kazimir Malevich and includes Piet many cultures. Copper was understood as Mondrian, Barnett Newman, Josef Albers the metal ruled by Venus and associations and more latterly Helio Oiticica and of earthly love and sensuality, feminine Helmet Federle. beauty and the creative life force are In 1989 Bambury visited Europe to inherent in any reading in an artistic take up the Moet & Chandon Fellowship context. near Paris. This extended visit enabled So here in one towering structure is the artist to connect with both the earliest a demonstration of Bambury’s reach, and contemporary forms of European conceptual grounding in modernist abstraction as well as the earlier medieval abstraction and an acknowledgment of religious altarpieces and icons. wider spiritual concerns that inform, and The fusion of these two strands of have informed, the human experience over spiritual inquiry resulted in a series of millennia. Both the concrete materiality works first displayed in Germany in an of an ancient metal and the role of the exhibition at the Stiftung fur konkrete artist as alchemist outside the boundaries Kunst Reutlingen entitled Christian Icons of the quotidian or even ‘painterly’ is the and Modern Art in 1991. revelation available for all to see. From this point the artist initiated a long running body of multi-panel works Hamish Coney Shane Cotton 31 Kiddy Kiddy oil on canvas signed and dated 1997 1830 x 1520mm Provenance: Private collection, Wellington. $80 000 – $120 000 ‘Kiddy Kiddy’ was a common mispronunciation jumbled, their letters often oddly separated or transliteration of Kerikeri in the Bay of Islands to produce an effect of meaning desperately during the time of early European exploration clung to, as the tides of misunderstanding and and settlement. For decades before the misappropriation threaten cognition on both signing of the Treaty of Waitangi the Bay was sides. The threads of meaning are stretched to notorious both for the fearsome reputation of breaking point, in an environment of mutual the indigenous population and for the depravity bewilderment and unfamiliarity. Only the and licentiousness of foreign sailors who landed landforms remain constant, and even these, in there. The Anglican missionaries who did most their volcanic nature, are of uncertain reliability. to prepare this remote haven for annexation The assertion of the modern copyright symbol by Britain certainly had their work cut out. across these mercurial mindscapes serves The ‘Kiddy Kiddy’ title suggests an element of only to underscore the basic fact of endless, derisive humour hangs about this lusciously ungovernable change. sepia-toned evocation of contested Northland Yet Cotton’s anarchic humour is infused territory – absurdity piled on absurdity in the though every stratum of the layer-cake he bizarre collection of communities that grew cunningly suggests through the planting of there following the advent of European and candle-like letters on strips of soil, sea and American ships. Like oil and water, Maori and sky. Another visual joke is the red coat-hanger ship-borne arrivals swirled uneasily around formed from the traditional puhoro design, seen each other before the crazy mixture began to in the upper left-hand quadrant. This is a play gel into anything resembling an integrated on the old joke about ‘kotanga’ being Maori for settlement, let alone a governed polity. The ‘coat-hanger’, and the many ad hoc uses to which layered effect achieved by Cotton in composing this quaint, humble, domestic, mass-produced Kiddy Kiddy suggests the artist’s archaeological and industrial device can be put. The puhoro digging as he delves into the lumpy humus of design is based on the form of a stylised wave, the colonial past, just as it mimics the strip- symbolic of aquatic adventure and challenge, like topographical drawings used by foreign so its transformation into a ‘kotanga’ provides seamen and surveyors to delineate Maori-held another layer of humorous allusion to change. territories they had designs on. While the sepia The puhoro/kotanga is also made to look like the colouring is anachronistically suggestive of early profile of a volcano, spitting out fire. The artist’s photographs, the tonal range also delightfully name, ‘Cotton’, appearing boldly at the foot of recalls Polynesian barkcloth, drawing attention the work, can be read as a punning reference to points of similarity shared by European and to the imported textile, even as we remember Polynesian graphic traditions. Even as Cotton’s that the New Zealand flax, Phormium tenax, was paintings highlight superficial differences coveted by the British Navy for making rope and between the cultures, at a deeper level they also sailcloth. Humour and play, suggests Cotton, reveal essential commonalities that are often offer the best routes through treacherous reefs overlooked. of cultural misunderstanding. Cotton’s fascination with graphic design is also given free rein in Kiddy Kiddy. Maori and Oliver Stead English words, phrases and proper names are 50 Pat Hanly 32 Who AM I? oil on canvas signed and dated ’69; title inscribed and dated and inscribed Creation Works verso; original HANLY label affixed verso 1250 x 1210mm $130 000 – $180 000 During 1967 Pat Hanly began his radical and silhouette but it is further singled out from the inventive molecular series of paintings and surrounding background by the use of a different prints which included the current work with the palette. The figure is cooler and darker with blues intriguing title Who Am I? of 1969. It shows the and greens not found in the rest of the painting stencilled image of a standing male figure that where predominately red, yellow and white fills the front of the picture plane, reaching from occur. While the artist clearly shows that figure top to bottom so that there is an assertive, almost and surroundings are all made up of particles of confrontational aspect to the image. There are no matter in energetic flux, he wants to distinguish facial features to allow us to identify the figure as the figure as having its own unique identity and a self- portrait in a conventional sense, but this by interior energy. no means excludes it being a representation of the It is helpful to note that in 1968 Hanly painted artist in terms of this series. a work usually called Real Self Portrait that has an For the idea behind the molecular works is interesting inscription on the back in relation to to bypass the outer appearance of the subject the current painting. It reads: I am“Self Portrait and come up with an image that conveys not Molecular Aspect 1968.” This work shows a profile solid forms but the particles of molecular energy head of the artist created with a stencil based on from which everything is made. These atomic a photograph of him. The interior of the head is particles are constantly in motion creating a made up of splashes of paint and vibrant colours lively animated pattern which Hanly evokes by the that suggest the creativity of the artist rather than gestural application of his paint in dribbles and depict his recognisable features. The silhouette of splotches of pigment. Movement and energy that the head is against a dark stellar background with we cannot see with the naked eye are suggested a suggestion of infinity. This shows that Hanly was by the process of applying the paint so that we already interested in a molecular self- portrait can participate in the act of creation. To achieve before embarking on the present work. It extends his effects Hanly drew on the methods of Action the concept further by encompassing the whole painters like Jackson Pollock and the American figure, not just the head, and perhaps significantly Abstract Expressionists whose paintings were shows his hands and legs. His creative identity avant- garde at that time. is now not purely cerebral but also bodily and Whereas these painters were mainly energetic, charged with molecular energy. concerned with abstraction, Hanly retains a This is an exciting and innovative work, unique figurative dimension in this example as in other in every sense. molecular works dealing with flowers and garden imagery. Not only is the figure shown in Michael Dunn Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. Illustrated: Gregory O’Brien, Hanly (Auckland, 2012), p. 100. 52 Michael Smither 33 Homage to Henri oil on board title inscribed, signed and dated June 1968 – April 1969 and inscribed First exhibited at the Peter McLeavey Gallery, 147 Cuba Street, Wellington verso 1455 x 1200mm $70 000 – $100 000 This big work looks as if it was painted last far from the tea kiosk in Pukekura Park1 It week but in fact it is nearly 50 years since was like a secret spot that had magical Michael Smither worked on it in his studio qualities. My mother would say, if you clap at The Gables where he lived with his your hands, Tinkerbell would come.” young family in New Plymouth’s Pukekura “When I came back to the park as an Park. The artist thought it had disappeared adult I was struck by the blue ginger leaves, –“All these years I’ve wondered where it the shamrocks, the fern and especially the was” – and is delighted it has resurfaced. red leaves. They were a signal to me. All It was painted in the era when Smither hanging vertically with minds of their own. was paying fascinated attention to his It was a eureka moment! In a sense they children and his domestic environment, were the tiger eyes of Rousseau; he showed to the park he was surrounded by, and to me stylistically how I could capture what I the rock pools that he dived nearby on the wanted to convey.” Taranaki coast. His confidence in his vision The six different leaf textures are and his ability to render it in paint was rendered with luminous precision, being reinforced with critical recognition grouped around a soft blue-grey-green in Australia and he grew to feel himself a tree trunk that creates a mysterious South Pacific outpost of the long heritage moonlit ambience, each of its russet last of European painting tradition. leaves hanging like a bauble from a spindly Homage to Henri is obviously bough. The painting on board suggests influenced by the French painter Henri a magical world here and now right Rousseau and the way he elevated foliage before our eyes, expanding off into the to an almost mystical, fabled presence in dark somewhere beyond its frame. With his paintings. its strong art-historical reference and its “I admired Rousseau tremendously,” sense of ethereal stillness, it captures both says Smither. “He was known as an flow and timelessness. amateur, a naïve, and I felt I was in the same position as he was. He even composed Trish Gribben music, as I did, and used to take his violin to parties. A mad bastard I identified with.” The painting was inspired by a 1. Trish Gribben author, Michael Smither, Ron childhood memory of the artist. “My Sang Publications, (Auckland, 2004). All other quotes, author in conversation with artist, mother used to take me to a little dell, not March 2015 Exhibited: ‘Michael Smither: Paintings’, Peter McLeavey Gallery, Wellington, 16 April – 3 May, 1969. 54 Robin White 34 Bare Hill, Paremata acrylic on canvas title inscribed, signed and dated ’69 and inscribed No. 55 verso 758 x 606mm $50 000 – $70 000 Paremata is not an area much celebrated for she has also been compared with. This, plus the use its dramatic scenic beauty, but it provided the of acrylic paint with its flat quick drying properties, young Robin White with subject matter for her first contributes to the modern look of the image. characteristic landscape paintings and prints. In Rita Angus was an acknowledged inspiration for 1969, the year Bare Hill, Paremata, was painted, early Robin White both as a committed woman artist Robin White was only 23 and recently out of art and as an individual stylist whose work and vision school. This striking work has overtones of artists was based on subjects she knew and loved. Angus she admired and by whom she had been taught – was living in Wellington, at the time White was in but has its own identity. In its stark presentation of Paremata, and was painting the hills and housing a characteristic hilly New Zealand landscape with a of the city with its characteristic geography. Her reductive flattening of the forms of hills and gullies late Wellington works provide some precedent for it echoes Colin McCahon, her most influential White and also reject the Kelliher style scenic views lecturer at Elam. then still fashionable among established landscape As often occurs in McCahon, the landforms are painters. overlapped and set one behind the other to suggest Interestingly White did not see herself as a spatial recession rather than by deployment of landscape painter. In an interview with Alister Taylor atmospheric perspective or framing devices such as in 1981 she noted: ‘It seemed natural to start with a tree or building. However, her focus is dead pan things around me. I wasn’t consciously being a and dead even. Forms near the edge of the canvas realist or a landscape painter, or whatever, these are in the same sharp focus as those near the centre. were just the things that were outside my window, The foreground bush has almost the same intensity and around me. The hills across the harbour. As of colour as the middle distance. Her sky is a flat I sat in the room that I worked in, looking out the expanse of blue ungraduated and unremitting in its window, that is what I saw, so I began at that point.’ intensity. Her painting is hard edge with the forms She also observed: ‘Initially the hills were bush and contours outlined in dark almost black tones. clad and parts of them were being bull dozed out By flattening all the forms so that they read in square geometric kind of shapes.’ Thus it is the as patterns on the surface of the painting, she transformation of the landscape from scrubland simplifies and intensifies the subject matter. In some into a housing estate that we see here, though the ways the work is closer to geometric abstraction absence of bull dozers and workers makes the event than to earlier New Zealand landscape painting. For take on a surreal dimension. In retrospect, we can example, compared with Bill Sutton’s Nor’Wester in see the rawness of the bare hill as a symbol of Robin the Cemetery, 1950, a work she knew and admired White’s beginnings as an artist, a blank canvas ready in the Auckland Art Gallery, Bare Hill, Paremata to be built upon and transformed. is far less descriptive and far less naturalistic. It The Paremata paintings and prints make an is more conceptualised than seen, made rather important and precocious series that established than matched from nature. Her dead pan vision Robin White as an individual voice New Zealand art is complemented by her elimination of brushwork of the late 1960s. and thick paint, such as is found in Sutton and all his contemporaries and also in early Binney – an artist Michael Dunn Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. Reference: Alister Taylor, Robin White: New Zealand Painter (Martinborough, 1981), Cat No. 18. 56 35 PAT HANLY Summer Torso acrylic and enamel on board signed and dated ’77 and inscribed Torso J; title inscribed, signed and dated and inscribed Gesture Painting verso 600 x 767mm Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. $60 000 – $80 000 58 36 DON BINNEY Otago Coast oil on board signed and dated 1964; title inscribed and dated verso 610 x 529mm Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. $30 000 – $40 000 59 37 JOHN PULE Fakaue kehe tau monunia haau acrylic on unstretched canvas title inscribed, signed and dated 2000 1800 x 1630mm $25 000 – $35 000 60 38 JOHN PULE Momoui acrylic and ink on canvas title inscribed 2000 x 2000mm $25 000 – $35 000 61 39 GORDON WALTERS Untitled gouache on paper signed and dated ’76 180 x 142mm Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. $8000 – $12 000 40 RICHARD KILLEEN Destruction of the circle acrylic and collage on eight aluminium panels, 3/5 title inscribed and dated June 22, 1990 verso 298 x 210mm: each panel 800 x 1060mm: installation size variable $5000 – $8000 41 DON BINNEY Illustrated: A Cape for Father Damien II Damian Skinner, Don Binney: Nga Manu/ oil on board Nga Motu – Birds/Islands (Auckland signed and dated ’93 University Press, 2003), pl. 60. 1180 x 590mm Provenance: $45 000 – $65 000 Private collection, Wellington. 63 42 EMILY WOLFE Lagoon II oil on linen signed and dated 2007 verso 1060 x 1220mm Exhibited: ‘Jerwood Contemporary Painters’, Jerwood Space, London, 15 February – 1 April 2007 (touring to Cardiff and Salford Quays). $10 000 – $15 000 64 43 PETER SIDDELL Doorway oil on board signed; artist’s name, title and date (2003) inscribed on artist’s original label affixed verso 600 x 398mm $24 000 – $32 000 65 44 This large historical tableau stands as one of Shepherd’s largest works, at once quite dense with symbolism but also able to be ‘read’. The comet of the title is MICHAEL SHEPHERD Halley’s comet (Hare Kometi) which makes an appearance every 75/76 years. Still Life in the Year of the Comet The most recent passes of the comet have been 1910 and 1986. Shepherd utilizes oil on board in artist’s original frame these dates to examine the significance of the comet’s appearance in 1910 to dated 86; original Sarjeant Gallery the Urewera based Ringatu community centred around the prophet Rua Kenena touring label affixed verso (1868 – 1937) who succeeded Te Kooti as leader of the faith. In 1910 Rua and 900 x 1900mm his followers were assembled in their bastion of Maungapohatu north of Lake Waikaremoana. The extraordinary circular meeting house, adorned with a mixture Illustrated: of Christian, Masonic and other symbols such as the blue ‘clubs’ and yellow Claudia Bell, Excavating the past: ‘diamonds’ was named Hiona (Zion) in clear reference to the desire for deliverance Michael Shepherd artist (Wellington, that Rua envisaged for his people. It is within the temple that Shepherd places his 2005), p. 5. altar-like still life. Elizabeth Caughey and John Gow, The sighting of the comet was taken as a symbol for Christ and provided a Contemporary New Zealand Art 1 powerful affirmation for Rua and his followers. The assemblage of Rua related (Auckland, 1997), p. 44. ‘exhibits’ sits atop a Union Jack on which we see glimpses of the original text of a period flag which read: KOTAHI TE TURE MO NGA IWI E RUA MAUNGAPOHATU Literature: meaning ‘There is one law for both people MAUNGAPOHATU’. The inscription Claudia Bell, ibid., pp. 5 – 6. Mihaia (Messiah) on the wall of Hiona makes explicit the analogy that Rua Kenana (Canaan) was the leader who would guide Tuhoe, like the Israelites, to their $20 000 – $30 000 promised land. Hamish Coney 66 45 LOUISE HENDERSON December, 1987 oil on canvas signed and dated 1987 2490 x 1486mm $15 000 – $25 000 67 46 TONY FOMISON King Lear oil on canvasboard title inscribed, signed and dated ‘1988 Lincoln St; 1989 Williamson Ave, Grey Lynn’ and inscribed “You mad one turned into a fool by your own fool who has now become your confessor – and the Punch & Judy show… is on” 458 x 550mm Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. $25 000 – $35 000 68 47 TONY FOMISON Vulcan the Ugly, Making Something Beautiful oil on hessian on board signed and dated 1982 and inscribed “Vulcan” verso; inscribed started 13. 6. 81 finished 2. 8. 82 verso; original Ferner Gallery and exhibition labels affixed verso 358 x 264mm $25 000 – $35 000 69 48 TONY FOMISON The Sea Wall oil on hessian mounted to pinex in artist’s original frame title inscribed, signed and dated 15.7.80 verso 448 x 605mm Reference: Ian Wedde (ed), Fomison: What shall we tell them? (Wellington, 1994), supplementary Cat. No. 438. Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. $35 000 – $45 000 70 49 BILL HAMMOND Set Design: Brueghel’s Icarus I and II acrylic on wallpaper, two panels title inscribed, signed and dated 1990 1950 x 510mm and 1600 x 510mm $25 000 – $35 000 71 50 RALPH HOTERE Let shame be their punishment let us acquire fame by means of mercy acrylic and watercolour on paper title inscribed, signed and dated ’72 and inscribed (Elsdon Best – Tuhoe P 962) and WAIHO MA TE WHAKAMA E PATU WAIHO HAI KORERO I A TATAU KIA ATAWHAI KI TE IWI 525 x 422mm Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. $18 000 – $26 000 72 51 RALPH HOTERE Drawing for Black Painting acrylic and watercolour on paper title inscribed, signed and dated ’69 448 x 327mm $16 000 – $24 000 73 52 SHANE COTTON Half Cast silkscreen print with hand applied acrylic title inscribed, signed and dated 2010 and inscribed twenty three 1220 x 1220mm $6000 – $9000 53 SHANE COTTON Stelliferous Biblia No. 24 acrylic on canvas title inscribed, signed and dated 2001 verso 355 x 355mm $8000 – $12 000 74 54 PETER ROBINSON Painting 1993 oil and bitumen on paper 585 x 775mm Exhibited: ‘Peter Robinson: Recent Paintings’, Peter McLeavey Gallery, Wellington, 10 August – 4 September 1993. Provenance: Private collection, Wellington. Purchased from Peter McLeavey Gallery, Wellington, 1 September 1993. $11 000 – $15 000 75 55 TOSS WOOLLASTON The Head of the Huinga Valley, Taranaki oil on board, circa 1933 signed; original John Leech Gallery label affixed verso; inscribed in another’s hand Signed on the 21st of October 1996 when Toss Woollaston and Kerry Aberhart popped into the John Leech Gallery to view the Castleburg (sic) Woollaston’s that we were selling. A photograph of Toss and Kerry taken at this exhibition is enclosed below verso; letter from Toss Woollaston to Kerry Aberhart affixed verso along with photograph of the two at John Leech Gallery 427 x 520mm Provenance: Collection of Mrs Arthur, Taranaki (whom the artist resided with in 1933 – 1934). Passed by descent to her sons, Norman and John Arthur. Private collection, Auckland. $20 000 – $30 000 76 56 FELIX KELLY Untitled oil on board artist’s name ascribed verso (in another hand) 143 x 179mm Provenance: Collection of the artist’s estate, United Kingdom. Private collection, North Island, New Zealand. $6000 – $10 000 57 FELIX KELLY Untitled oil on board artist’s name ascribed verso (in another hand) 174 x 223mm Provenance: Collection of the artist’s estate, United Kingdom. Private collection, North Island, New Zealand. $6000 – $10 000 77 58 ROBERT ELLIS Arepa Omeka: Hanuere 1984 acrylic on board title inscribed, signed and dated 1984; title inscribed, signed and dated verso 350 x 290mm $4000 – $6000 59 SIMON MORRIS Pause 2 acrylic on canvas title inscribed, signed and dated 1999 verso 660 x 505mm $3000 – $5000 78 60 NEIL DAWSON Jive laser cut steel, 3/35 title inscribed, signed and dated June 2002 on artist’s accompanying crate 390 x 390 x 77mm Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. $3000 – $6000 61 TERRY STRINGER Evelyn Page cast bronze, 2/3 signed and dated ‘84/’85 320 x 215 x 200mm $8000 – $12 000 79 62 GEOFF THORNLEY Construction 3/80 oil on canvas on board signed and dated verso 1220 x 1095mm Provenance: Private collection, Auckland. $7000 – $10 000 63 JOHN REYNOLDS I see by what blinds me etched aluminium title inscribed, signed and dated 2002 and inscribed ‘from Curnow’s: Ten Steps to the Sea’ verso 120 0 x 120 0mm $6500 – $8500 80 Lot 17. 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ART+OBJECT makes all sale, b) re offer the lot for sale are recommended to read these At times during an auction attempts to accurately describe to an underbidder or at auction. notes. the bidding can be frenetic and catalogue lots offered ART+OBJECT reserves the right so you need to be sure you for sale. Notwithstanding to pursue the purchaser for any A. give clear instructions to the this neither the vendor nor difference in sale proceeds if Bidding at auction: Please person executing your bids. ART+OBJECT accepts any this course of action is chosen, ensure your instructions to The auctioneer will endeavour liability for errors of description c) to pursue legal remedy for the auctioneer are clear and to cater to the requirements of or faults and imperfections breach of contract. easily understood. It is well to phone bidders but cannot wait whether described in writing understand that during a busy for a phone bid so your prompt or verbally. This applies to 9. sale with multiple bidders the participation is requested. questions of authenticity and Collection of goods: Purchased auctioneer may not be able quality of the item. Buyers are items are to be removed to see all bids at all times. It is D. deemed to have inspected the from ART+OBJECT premises recommended that you raise New Zealand dollars: All item thoroughly and proceed on immediately after payment or your bidding number clearly estimates in this catalogue are their own judgment. The act of clearance of cheques. Absentee and without hesitation. If your in New Zealand dollars. The bidding is agreed by the buyer bidders must make provision for bid is made in error or you have amount to be paid by successful to be an indication that they are the uplifting of purchased items misunderstood the bidding level bidders on the payment date is satisfied on all counts regarding (see instructions on the facing please advise the auctioneer the New Zealand dollar amount condition and authenticity. page) immediately of your error – stated on the purchaser invoice. prior to the hammer falling. Exchange rate variations are at Please note that if you have the risk of the purchaser. made a bid and the hammer has 82 This completed and signed form authorizes ART+OBJECT to bid on my behalf at the Absentee above mentioned auction for the following lots up to prices indicated below. These bid form bids are to be executed at the lowest price levels possible. I understand that if successful I will purchase the lot or lots at or below the prices listed on this form and the listed buyers premium for this sale (15%) and GST on the buyers premium. I warrant also that I have read and understood and agree to comply with the conditions of sale as printed in the catalogue. Auction No. 91 Lot no. Description Bid maximum (NZ dollars) Important Paintings and Contemporary Art 1 April 2015 at 6.30pm ART+OBJECT 3 Abbey Street Newton Auckland PO Box 68 345 Payment and Delivery Newton ART+OBJECT will advise me as soon as is practical that I am the successful bidder of the lot or lots Auckland 1145 described above. I agree to pay immediately on receipt of this advice. Payment will be by cash, cheque Telephone: +64 9 354 4646 or bank transfer. I understand that cheques will need to be cleared before goods can be uplifted or Freephone: 0 800 80 60 01 dispatched. I will arrange for collection or dispatch of my purchases. If ART+OBJECT is instructed by me Facsimile: +64 9 354 4645 to arrange for packing and dispatch of goods I agree to pay any costs incurred by ART+OBJECT. Note: ART+OBJECT requests that these arrangements are made prior to the auction date to ensure prompt [email protected] delivery processing. www.artandobject.co.nz Please indicate as appropriate by ticking the box: PHONE BID ABSENTEE BID MR/MRS/MS: SURNAME: POSTAL ADDRESS: STREET ADDRESS: BUSINESS PHONE: MOBILE: FAX: EMAIL: Signed as agreed: To register for Absentee bidding this form must be lodged with ART+OBJECT by 2pm on the day of the published sale time in one of three ways: 1. Fax this completed form to ART+OBJECT +64 9 354 4645 2. Email a printed, signed and scanned form to: [email protected] 3. Post to ART+OBJECT, PO Box 68 345 Newton, Auckland 1145, New Zealand 83 ARTIST INDEX Albrecht, Gretchen 7 Bambury, Stephen 5, 6, 14, 30 Binney, Don 36, 41 Cotton, Shane 26, 31, 52, 53 Dawson, Neil 60 Ellis, Robert 58 Fomison, Tony 46, 47, 48 Fraser, Jacqueline 23, 24 Hammond, Bill 49 Hanly, Pat 32, 35 Henderson, Louise 45 Henson, Bill 15 Hotere, Ralph 50, 51 Kelly, Felix 56, 57 Killeen, Richard 1, 9, 10, 11, 40 Lee, Jae Hoon 16 McCahon, Colin 28, 29 Madden, Peter 20 Maw, Liz 8 Millar, Judy 2 Morris, Simon 59 Oh, Seung Yul 4 Orjis, Richard 21 Parekowhai, Michael 3, 12, 25, 27 Peryer, Peter 18, 19 Pule, John 37, 38 Reynolds, John 63 Robinson, Peter 54 Rudneva-Mackay, Layla 22 Shelton, Ann 17 Siddell, Peter 43 Shepherd, Michael 44 Smither, Michael 33 Stringer, Terry 61 Thornley, Geoff 62 Walters, Gordon 39 White, Robyn 34 Whiteread, Rachael 13 Wolfe, Emily 42 Woollaston, Toss 55 84 IMPORTANT PAINTINGS AND CONTEMPORARY ART 1 APRIL 2015